Traditional floor boards are installed via nail down or glue down methods. Recently, floor boards can be installed via floating method with mechanical locks. Most of these mechanical locks are based on a mechanism of flipping down on one edge to lock and sliding into another edge to secure the entire board. The locks require precision milling for the locks to work properly and small deformation of flooring panel after milling will render the locks unusable.
Therefore, there is a need for an apparatus that simplifies flooring board installation process and reduces relative movement between two adjacent flooring boards, and there is also a need for the locks to accept floor boards, such as solid hardwood board, that are not as dimensionally stable as high-density floor (HDF) boards or floor boards with some degree of milling tolerance. It is to this apparatus the present invention is primarily directed to.